Jun. 10, 2012

Written by

Jennifer Justus

The Tennessean

When Jack Daniel master distiller Jeff Arnett stood by the famous cave spring in Lynchburg, Tenn., he spoke of how the water drew Jack Daniel the man to the area. He spoke of its mineral content — iron-free and high in limestone — and of the distillery’s purchase of the land above the spring in the 1980s to ensure that it remained protected.

And he even spoke of a famous singer from Nashville who was so curious to taste the water on a recent visit that she nearly fell into it.

But how does the water turn to whiskey? And, more specifically, what makes it special to Tennessee?

Like the live music on every corner in town, we sometimes take for granted that just down the road in tiny Lynchburg, every drop of the world’s most popular whiskey is made and shipped to 135 countries.

More distilleries have been popping up in Nashville since state laws changed in 2009 to allow for distillers in counties that serve liquor by the drink and in package liquor stores. And while they might have alternative ingredients or processes, like Jack Daniel, it all goes back to the water, Tennessee’s agrarian corn-raising roots and the traditional methods in the craft.

A lifelong dream

Ask Mike Williams about the water he uses at his Collier and McKeel distillery, for example. He comes from a long line of whiskey makers. His family moved to the area in the 1790s after the whiskey rebellion and brought with them their ancestors’ whiskey-making heritage from Scotland and Ireland.

So when Williams was 16 and procrastinating on a school science project, his father suggested that they drive to Lynchburg and take a sample of the water. They continued gathering samples all the way to his home in Waverly, Tenn.

“We stopped at every mud hole and creek,” he said.

The results revealed that the water in Lynchburg had the same properties as the water at every stop along the way and at Williams’ home. And since then, he has wanted to open a distillery of his own.

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When Williams turned 50, still holding onto the dream, his wife finally delivered the line that moved him to action: “Either do it, or shut up,” she told him.

Now, just five years later, Williams can be found in the Nashville distillery that he shares with Jenny and Jeff Pennington of SPEAKeasy, tasting his Tennessee whiskey for quality right out of the barrel.

Whiskey vs. bourbon

Whiskey production begins when the water combines with a mixture of corn and other grains, which brings us to an important distinction: Tennessee whiskey is technically bourbon. But not all bourbon can be called Tennessee whiskey.

Bourbon also must be aged in new, charred American oak, and it must be bottled at 80 proof. While “Kentucky” bourbon must be made in Kentucky, bourbons also can be made elsewhere.

And although some whiskey makers say making bourbon in Tennessee makes it Tennessee whiskey, others, like Williams and Arnett, will argue that the key difference in Tennessee whiskey is its trip through the charcoal mellowing process.

Jack Daniel and Collier and McKeel follow the process, and it’s been taking place since the 1870s at Tullahoma’s George Dickel, too.

Charcoal mellowing filters the liquid through sugar maple charcoal to remove impurities and bitter flavor. Charcoal mellowing is also known as the Lincoln County process, named for the county where Jack Daniel originally stood before county lines were re-drawn.

Arnett also proudly notes that in the early 1940s the federal tax authorities declared that the flavor derived from the maple charcoal process made it different enough to invalidate the use of the word “bourbon.” But, there still is no actual legal category of “Tennessee whiskey.”

“Tennessee whiskey has never really had an identifier,” Williams said, “but we’re not going to sell whiskey that doesn’t go through the Lincoln County process.”

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Family traditions

Charles Nelson, 28, understands both process and place. He will tell you that his Belle Meade Bourbon, one of the newer bourbons available on shelves locally, is not necessarily Tennessee whiskey, but he hopes the money he raises from the bourbon will help him produce his great-great-great-grandfather’s recipe for Green Brier Tennessee Whiskey, which will go through the charcoal mellowing process.

Nelson says his family’s whiskey, trademarked in 1860, is older and was larger than Jack Daniel’s at the time.

“We knew that our family had been in the whiskey business,” he said. “But we didn’t know it was such a big deal back in the day.”

Nelson, his father and his brother were tipped off to their whiskey-making heritage on a trip to pick up some meat in Greenbrier about six years ago.

The butcher who sold the Nelsons the meat happened to live on part of the land where the old distillery had been. He shared what he knew with the Nelsons and sent them to the Greenbrier Historical Society.

“We eventually dug up original whiskey bottles with our name on them and fell in love,” Nelson said.

After tracking down the original recipe, Nelson now hopes to have a distillery up and running within the next year.

An illustrious past

Of course, whiskey can’t be made without a still. And when it comes to the still, Darek Bell of Corsair Artisan Distillery has one that’s been full of history as well as booze.

While Bell and his business partner, Andrew Webber, make bourbons and many other interesting spirits, including a Quinoa whiskey, they do not make a Tennessee whiskey using the charcoal mellowing process.

Even so, Bell talks eloquently of the region’s whiskey-making tradition; its water that is ripe for the product; and the strong economic reasons for making whiskey in this area.

Whiskey offered a byproduct of corn, and farmers couldn’t afford to see unused corn rot.

“It was a commodity,” Williams added of whiskey. “It was an antiseptic, and it was hard currency.”

Bell’s copper still has seen many of these uses as it operated legally before prohibition.

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“It was almost destroyed by a revenuer’s pick ax,” Bell said, before it found its way to a farm where it operated illegally. Bell came across the still after it was rejected due to its size from a moonshine museum in California. He keeps it in use making his award-winning Triple Smoke whiskey and Rasputin Hopped whiskey.

Taste of Tennessee

Williams likes to say that every step involved with whiskey making happens better in Tennessee because of the conditions here.

Take, for instance, the final process of aging whiskey in barrels, which gives the whiskey color and depth of flavor. Williams said the fluctuation in temperature in this part of the country also helps with adding flavor during the aging process, as the whiskey will seep in and out of the wood at different levels depending on temperature.

The final way to distinguish between a Tennessee whiskey and bourbon, of course, is to give it a taste. Arnett says that bourbon is bold, peppery and spicy, while his Tennessee whiskey is sweet and oakey. In other parts of the world, whiskeys take on flavors based on environment and distilling methods, such as bourbon from Kentucky and Scotch from across the pond.

But when Williams met a caddy on the golf course at St. Andrews in Scotland, he was reminded of the tradition of whiskey making we’ve made for ourselves here. The caddy told him that there’s only one other place in the world he’d rather be:

“At Tootsies,” he told Williams, “with my arm around Dolly Parton, drinking a Jack on the rocks and listening to Vince Gill.”